Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon ousted
Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news outlet Breitbart News, has been ousted.
Stephen K Bannon, the former xecutive chairman of Breitbart News, had masterminded the billionaire’s campaign for President and was seen as a driving force behind many of his most controversial policies.
Bannon was credited for Trump’s contentious Muslim travel ban, and was an opponent of LGBT rights.
However, he had clashed with other figures in the Trump administration, including the billionaire’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Trumps new Chief of Staff General John F. Kelly.
According to the New York Times, Bannon had offered his resignation more than a week ago, but was reportedly sacked today.
Many anti-LGBT headlines were published on Breitbart under Bannon’s tenure as publisher, attacking ‘Trannies’ and the ‘Big Gay Hate Machine’.
He referred to graduates from the all-female Seven Sisters colleges as “dykes”.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Speaking in 2011 about Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter, and Sarah Palin, Mr Bannon said: “These women cut to the heart of the progressive narrative.
“That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement… that, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children.
“They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that’s why they hate these women.”
He added that women on the left were part of a “narrative that is all about victimhood”.
He added: “They’re either a victim of race. They’re victim of their sexual preference. They’re a victim of gender. All about victimhood and the United States is the great oppressor, not the great liberator.”
Trump enraged LGBT activists last month by announcing a ban on transgender people serving in the US military.
In a string of Twitter posts, the President claimed that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender would entail”.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Justice Department filed a legal brief arguing against legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The Justice Department intervened in a discrimination case, to argue that civil rights laws should not protect gay workers from discrimination.
The department, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, argued that the 1964 Civil Rights Act – which outlaws discrimination based on a number of characteristics – does not provide any protections for gay people, despite outlawing sex-based discrimination.
If the administration’s view is upheld by the courts, it could have a chilling effect – effectively declaring open season for discrimination across the country.
Sarah Warbelow, Human Rights Campaign Legal Director, said in a statement: “Attacks against the LGBTQ community at all levels of government continue to pour in from the Trump-Pence Administration.
“In one fell swoop, Trump’s DOJ has provided a roadmap for dismantling years of federal protections and declared that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people may no longer be protected by landmark civil rights laws such as the Fair Housing Act, Title IX, or Title VII.
“For over a decade, courts have determined that discrimination on the basis of LGBTQ status is unlawful discrimination under federal law.
“[The administration’s] filing is a shameful retrenchment of an outmoded interpretation that forfeits faithful interpretation of current law to achieve a politically-driven and legally specious result.”
